On this Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful to you, dear Readers. May your life be filled with abundance and grace and may your gratitude to God be overflowing.
As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem,
he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten persons with leprosy met him.
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying,
“Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”
And when he saw them, he said,
“Go show yourselves to the priests.”
As they were going they were cleansed.
And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
He was a Samaritan.
Jesus said in reply,
“Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”
Then he said to him, “Stand up and go;
your faith has saved you.”
Luke 17:11-19
Cleansing of the ten lepers, c. 1035-1040, Codex Aureus Epternacensis
The Codex Aureus of Echternach(Codex aureus Epternacensis) is an 11th-century illuminated Gospel Book, created in the approximate period 1030-1050, with a re-used front cover from around the 980s. It is now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, Germany.
The manuscript contains the Vulgate versions of the four gospels plus prefatory matter including the Eusebian canon tables, and is a major example of Ottonian illumination, though the manuscript, as opposed to the cover, probably falls just outside the end of rule by the Ottonian dynasty. It was produced at the Abbey of Echternach under the direction of Abbot Humbert.
The manuscript has 136 folios which measure 446 mm by 310 mm. It is one of the most lavishly illuminated Ottonian manuscripts. It contains over 60 decorative pages including 16 full page miniatures, 9 full page initials, 5 evangelist portraits, 10 decorated pages of canon tables, and 16 half-page initials. In addition there are 503 smaller initials, and pages painted to resemble textiles. The entire text is written in gold ink.
Visit Wikipedia for more on Codex Aureus.
I liked this simple reflection on the gospel passage that I found from the Boston Catholic Journal:
“We are familiar with the story. It can be summarized in a sentence: Jesus heals ten lepers and only one comes back to say, “Thank You.”
Deceptively simple, yes?
Very clearly, it is a story about ingratitude.
It is also, however, a story about obsession. We are so obsessed with the gift that we are forgetful of the Giver. We are overwhelmed with our good fortune and so utterly absorbed in it, obsessed with it, that we have forgotten not only the Giver — but our own genuine poverty apart from Him.
We do not see the Giver for the gift.
It is an odd permutation: the Giver is God. The gift is from God. And then the gift itself is deflected from God — becoming a good greater than God.
The problem is that the gift is, well … a gift.
It is not ours.
It is His!
Our ingratitude is, sadly, quite common. What is uncommon is our obsession, our susceptibility to utter self-absorption — something that is both striking and revealing:
Our capacity for happiness apart from God is only revealed when we are given something — and ourunhappiness apart from God when we are deprived of it.
And we are blind to both.
But take heart. Jesus also healed the blind …”
Infinite Windows 